He preaches the Messiah whom the prophets of old had foretold.

 

 

And though he himself is a learned Jew he addresses his fellow Jews in Greek; and his Greek is halting, and he ill chooses his words.

 

 

But he is a man of hidden powers and his presence is affirmed by those who gather around him. And at times he assures them of what he himself is not assured.

 

 

 

We who knew Jesus and heard his discourses say that He taught man how to break the chains of his bondage that he might be free from his yesterdays.

 

 

But Paul is forging chains for the man of tomorrow. He would strike with his own hammer upon the anvil in the name of one whom he does not know.

 

 

The Nazarene would have us live the hour in passion and ecstasy.

 

 

The man of Tarsus would have us be mindful of laws recorded in the ancient books.

 

 

Jesus gave His breath to the breathless dead. And in my lone nights I believe and I understand.

 

 

When He sat at the board, He told stories that gave happiness to the feasters, and spiced with His joy the meat and the wine.

 

 

But Paul would prescribe our loaf and our cup.

 

 

Suffer me not to turn my eyes the other way.

SALOME TO A WOMAN FRIEND

A Desire Unfulfilled

 

He was like poplars shimmering in the sun;

 

And like a lake among the lonely hills,

 

Shining in the sun;

 

And like snow upon the mountain heights,

 

White, white in the sun.

 

 

Yea, He was like unto all these,

 

And I loved Him.

 

Yet I feared His presence.

 

And my feet would not carry my burden of love

 

That I might girdle His feet with my arms.

 

 

I would have said to Him,

 

“I have slain your friend in an hour of passion.

 

Will you forgive me my sin?

 

And will you not in mercy release my youth

 

From its blind deed,

 

That it may walk in your light?”

 

 

I know He would have forgiven my dancing

 

For the saintly head of His friend.

 

I know He would have seen in me

 

An object of His own teaching.

 

For there was no valley of hunger He could not bridge,

 

And no desert of thirst He could not cross.

 

 

Yea, He was even as the poplars,

 

And as the lakes among the hills,

 

And like snow upon Lebanon.

 

And I would have cooled my lips in the folds of His garment.

 

 

But He was far from me,

 

And I was ashamed.

 

And my mother held me back

 

When the desire to seek Him was upon me.

 

 

Whenever He passed by, my heart ached for his loveliness,

 

But my mother frowned at Him in contempt,

 

And would hasten me from the window

 

To my bedchamber.

 

And she would cry aloud saying,

 

“Who is He but another locust-eater from the desert?

 

 

What is He but a scoffer and a renegade,

 

A seditious riot-monger, who would rob us of sceptre and crown,

 

And bid the foxes and the jackals of His accursed land

 

Howl in our halls and sit upon our throne?

 

Go hide your face from this day,

 

And await the day when His head shall fall down,

 

But not upon your platter.”

 

 

These things my mother said.

 

But my heart would not keep her words.

 

I loved Him in secret,

 

And my sleep was girdled with flames.

 

 

He is gone now.

 

And something that was in me is gone also.

 

Perhaps it was my youth

 

That would not tarry here,

 

Since the God of youth was slain.

 

RACHAEL
A WOMAN DISCIPLE

On Jesus the Vision and the Man

 

I often wonder whether Jesus was a man of flesh and blood like ourselves, or a thought without a body, in the mind, or an idea that visits the vision of man.

 

 

Often it seems to me that He was but a dream dreamed by the countless men and women at the same time in a sleep deeper than sleep and a dawn more serene than all dawns.

 

 

And it seems that in relating the dream, the one to the other, we began to deem it a reality that had indeed come to pass; and in giving it body of our fancy and a voice of our longing we made it a substance of our own substance.

 

 

But in truth He was not a dream. We knew Him for three years and beheld Him with our open eyes in the high tide of noon.

 

 

We touched His hands, and we followed Him from one place to another. We heard His discourses and witnessed His deeds. Think you that we were a thought seeking after more thought, or a dream in the region of dreams?

 

 

Great events always seem alien to our daily lives, though their nature may be rooted in our nature. But though they appear sudden in their coming and sudden in their passing, their true span is for years and for generations.

 

 

Jesus of Nazareth was Himself the Great Event. That man whose father and mother and brothers we know, was Himself a miracle wrought in Judea. Yea, all His own miracles, if placed at His feet, would not rise to the height of His ankles.

 

 

And all the rivers of all the years shall not carry away our remembrance of Him.

 

 

He was a mountain burning in the night, yet He was a soft glow beyond the hills. He was a tempest in the sky, yet He was a murmur in the mist of daybreak.

 

 

He was a torrent pouring from the heights to the plains to destroy all things in its path. And He was like the laughter of children.

 

 

Every year I had waited for spring to visit this valley. I had waited for the lilies and the cyclamen, and then every year my soul had been saddened within me; for ever I longed to rejoice with the spring, yet I could not.

 

 

But when Jesus came to my seasons He was indeed a spring, and in Him was the promise of all the years to come. He filled my heart with joy; and like the violets I grew, a shy thing, in the light of His coming.

 

 

And now the changing seasons of worlds not yet ours shall not erase His loveliness from this our world.

 

 

Nay, Jesus was not a phantom, nor a conception of the poets. He was man like yourself and myself. But only to sight and touch and hearing; in all other ways He was unlike us.

 

 

He was a man of joy; and it was upon the path of joy that He met the sorrows of all men. And it was from the high roofs of His sorrows that He beheld the joy of all men.

 

 

He saw visions that we did not see, and heard voices that we did not hear; and He spoke as if to invisible multitudes, and ofttimes He spoke through us to races yet unborn.

 

 

And Jesus was often alone. He was among us yet not one with us. He was upon the earth, yet He was of the sky. And only in our aloneness may we visit the land of His aloneness.

 

 

He loved us with tender love. His heart was a winepress. You and I could approach with a cup and drink therefrom.

 

 

One thing I did not use to understand in Jesus: He would make merry with His listeners; He would tell jests and play upon words, and laugh with all the fullness of His heart, even when there were distances in His eyes and sadness in His voice. But I understand now.

 

 

I often think of the earth as a woman heavy with her first child. When Jesus was born, He was the first child. And when He died, He was the first man to die.

 

 

For did it not appear to you that the earth was stilled on that dark Friday, and the heavens were at war with the heavens?

 

 

And felt you not when His face disappeared from our sight as if we were naught but memories in the mist?

CLEOPAS OF BETHROUNE

On the Law and the Prophets

 

When Jesus spoke the whole world was hushed to listen. His words were not for our ears but rather for the elements of which God made this earth.

 

 

He spoke to the sea, our vast mother, that gave us birth. He spoke to the mountain, our elder brother whose summit is a promise.

 

 

And He spoke to the angels beyond the sea and the mountain to whom we entrusted our dreams ere the clay in us was made hard in the sun.

 

 

And still His speech slumbers within our breast like a love-song half forgotten, and sometimes it burns itself through to our memory.

 

 

His speech was simple and joyous, and the sound of His voice was like cool water in a land of drought.

 

 

Once He raised His hand against the sky, and His fingers were like the branches of a sycamore tree; and He said with a great voice:

 

 

“The prophets of old have spoken to you, and your ears are filled with their speech. But I say unto you, empty your ears of what you have heard.”

 

 

And these words of Jesus, “But I say unto you,” were not uttered by a man of our race nor of our world; but rather by a host of seraphim marching across the sky of Judea.

 

 

Again and yet again He would quote the law and the prophets, and then he would say, “But I say unto you.”

 

 

Oh, what burning words, what waves of seas unknown to the shores of our mind, “But I say unto you.”

 

 

What stars seeking the darkness of the soul, and what sleepless souls awaiting the dawn.

 

 

 

To tell of the speech of Jesus one must needs have His speech or the echo thereof.

 

 

I have neither the speech nor the echo.

 

 

I beg you to forgive me for beginning a story that I cannot end. But the end is not yet upon my lips. It is still a love song in the wind.

NAAMAN OF THE GADARENES

On the Death of Stephen

 

His disciples are dispersed.